August 8, 2003

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

By PETER M. NICHOLS

VIOLENCE Reiss kills many people, and Lara and Terry blow away many others. As in most exercises like this one, none of it is very believable.

SEX Lara and Terry hint at it, but she remains hands-off.

PROFANITY Some but mild.

FOR WHICH CHILDREN?

UNDER AGE 10 No.

AGES 10-13 Parental discretion for sure, but generally all right. (Some viewers could be bored and annoyed by the hackneyed developments.)

ack for a sequel, the racy British archaeologist and aristocrat (Ms. Jolie) from the video game sprints around the globe in pursuit of this marvel and that. First there is the underwater Lunar Temple, which according to this movie is the greatest find since the pyramids. (Were they ever lost?) But Lady Croft is after much larger prizes.

There is the golden orb (inevitable in films like this), a glowing basketball-size object packed with magical-digital directions leading to the very biggest of all finds: Pandora's box, said to lie in the cradle of life near Mount Kilimanjaro. The box glows, too, and not benignly. Within are agents that, employed irresponsibly, could destroy mankind.

Cue just the man for such treachery, the satirically vile Dr. Reiss (Mr. Hinds). The doctor simply likes to poison people, from the man he dispatches with instant Ebola virus on his private jet to the millions he will dispose of if his demands are unmet.

Reiss and Lady Croft vie for orb and box. Lara has help from an adventurer named Terry Sheridan (Mr. Butler), whom we meet as a high-security prisoner supposedly as feared as Hannibal Lecter but who is a wimp and a loser. As for the conclusion, we see it coming as surely as we know Reiss will say, "Really, Lara, you disappoint me."